Familiarity
by BananaGirl
Summary: As she watches a man she hasn't seen for five years dangle calmly in the middle of her prison, Kyra fights with her emotions, and someone she thought she had buried a long time ago. The line between love and hate is often blurred and hazy.
1. Familiarity

Familiarity

When people walk, it is generally to get from one place to another, with a specific purpose in mind. The purpose could be as simple as the desire to get from that one to place to the other, or could be something more complex and hidden. However, my stance, movement and general demeanour indicate that I have no purpose. I'm just walking. It is as simple as that.

Then again, there isn't much else to do in a slam, especially one on Crematoria. Walking becomes a habit and, quite quickly, the prisoners get used to walking without a purpose, including me. At first, they would invent one. Any reason that popped into their head, just for an excuse to move from one place to another. Just for an excuse to not stand still for too long. Then, as time grew on, the reasons got more and more ridiculous, until there was really no point in justifying it; so they just walked.

I had passed that stage a long time ago, and now I'm walking without even thinking about it. People observing from the outside would refer to it as wandering rather than walking, but ask any of the prisoners and they would be adamant that they were walking. Definitely walking. I glance around the dimly lit prison, which doesn't actually seem so anymore, since I have grown accustomed to the poor lighting. I contemplate going in search for Rust, a dim-witted fellow inmate with a short fuse. Although slow and sluggish, both in his mental and physical attributes, I always find slight amusement in winding him up. This often ends with me temporarily knocking him out, since he always assumes he could kick my arse, so to speak. Perhaps slow and sluggish are words that are too kind.

A familiar grunting noise captures my attention, and an almost indistinguishable smile graces my features. Looks like Rust has decided to find me. Standing still, which is not something I do often, it takes me a few moments to realise that I am not his target. Following his gaze, my eyes widen in…I can't describe the feeling, but it's something totally alien to me.

Dangling calmly from an incredibly thick chain is someone I have not seen for five years. Someone who haunted my dreams for the best part of those five years. Someone I assumed was dead.

Richard B. Riddick's familiar voice echoes around the prison, but I can't make out what he's saying. I sit down on a rather uncomfortable set of rocks, something else I don't do much and, feeling a sharp stab from the pointy rocks, I realise why. I don't adjust my position, though. I just sit there, uncomfortably, and look at what seems like a ghost. I look, but I don't really see. A familiar leap in my chest jolts me, and thoughts I thought had died, thoughts I thought I had buried, come swimming to the front of my mind.

'_He's come back for me. He's come to **save** me.' _The millions of thoughts are merely different interpretations of this. The voice in my head, the one whispering these thoughts, is one I thought I had buried, also. It is whiny and immature, filled with hope and naivety. Childish.

The sudden appearance of the man with the coolest eyes ever has stirred Jack. I shake my head foolishly at this thought. Jack is gone. Jack is dead. I won't let this familiarity bring her back. It's not _fair._

I stand up and walk over. Rust is dead. Not sure how it happened, but I know who did it. He hasn't seen me yet, but the smirk plastered on his face is all the evidence I need. He has come for me. Then I see his head inclining this way and that, his goggled eyes searching for someone, and it hits me. He isn't looking for me. He's looking for Jack. He didn't come back for me. He came back for Jack.

The pain that rips through me is unbearable, made worse by the self-loathing. I should be relieved, should be glad he hasn't actually come back for me. Instead, I'm frozen to the spot, grief and betrayal coursing through my every vein. The abandonment I experienced five long years ago washes over me with clarity and new vigour.

There he is, standing in the middle of the prison. He broke free of his chains with ease and class, and now he is standing there, waiting for someone who doesn't exist. He is unaware of his familiarity to me. Unaware that he has caused these familiar emotions to bombard me, emotions that I had thought I had buried. Buried along with the person he is waiting for.

And for all the love Jack holds for him, all the worship, respect and trust the dead girl can muster, just for him. For all the happiness she is suddenly feeling because those emotions weren't wasted on him, he **did** come back, just as she had honestly believed, I match with the only emotion I, Kyra, have come to know and experience. The only emotion that has become my familiarity over these long, long years. I match Jack's feelings with simple, unadulterated hate. Hate for the man Jack adores, the man who has come back for her, but not for me.

The familiarity he instilled when he dangled obnoxiously in the middle of **my **prison has since died, along with Jack, having been resurrected for a few unbearable minutes and I glare at the familiar bald-headed man. I withdraw the shiv from my leather boot and approach him unflinchingly from behind, pressing it against his neck. And I so badly want to press deeper, to slit his throat open, as watch as his life fluid drains steadily from his body, because of **me**.

But I don't, because of all the hate that rages inside me, all the hate that is commanding me to kill the bastard, there is Jack. And she stops me. I, Kyra, despise the fucker that is Richard B. Riddick and wouldn't blink before ghosting the twat. But Jack, she's still here, and she loves him with all her strength. And Jack is a damn strong girl. So I say, with a voice that is so familiar, yet I haven't heard for years;

"Where the hell can I get eyes like that?"


	2. Comprehension

**Familiarity**

Chapter 2 / Comprehension

Before my feet can even touch the ground, I am in between a rock and a hard place, so to speak; the hard place being the dirty, jagged walls of Crematoria and the rock being, of course, Riddick. A gasp escapes my mouth as my back aches painfully from the force in which he slammed me against the wall. "Jack?" He asks, the voice sending chills throughout my body, bringing back unwanted memories. I kick upwards fitfully, catching his stomach. I had aimed lower, but he staggered backwards anyway, so it wasn't such a bad thing. His harsh grasp on me loosens, and I catch myself just before falling to the floor. Rubbing my neck gingerly where he grabbed me, I walk over to him. He made any attempt to get up, made no attempt to defend himself.

"Dickhead." I mutter, giving his solid form a good, hard kick. His protests make me smirk as he jumps to his feet, with his defences now up. _'About time.'_ I think to myself. _'About time he realises I'm not someone to fuck with.'_ The time it takes me to think these things, he has me on my back again from a pretty decent kick to the shins. "Bollocks." I mutter, quickly sitting up. I had been quite offended, truthfully, that he had not even bothered to go on the defensive, as though he thought I was harmless._ 'Ha!' _I thought with glee to myself, before groaning in pain as he delivered an incredibly hard punch. "Not gonna freak out on me again, Jack?" His deep voice almost commands, as I just sit there, my entire body throbbing.

"Jack's dead." I mutter bitterly, still sounding pathetic and immature and, quite rightly, hating how I sounded. My green eyes are trained on the familiar floor of Crematoria, but I can still tell he's standing in front of me, waiting rather impatiently. I bring a hand up to my mouth, wiping away the tiniest amount of blood, making a point of ignoring him.

"I thought you would have grown up by now, Jack." His voice displays little emotion, but my trained ears can sense an underlying tone of annoyance.

"Jack's fucking dead, so piss off." I say through gritted teeth. He crouches next to me, causing me to flinch, to both our horror. Me, of all people, **flinching**. _'What the fuck is wrong with me?'_ I wonder, trying to remember the last time I flinched, and failing miserably.

"You're right, you're not Jack; you flinched." Riddick's booming yet calm voice stirred an irrepressible anger inside of me.

"How dare you?" I explode, my gaze meeting his goggle-covered one. "Who the fuck do you think you are? I did **not **flinch. It must be your age; sight is the first thing to go, y'know." I finish, once again, on a rather immature note, but felt much better because of it.

"Look…" Riddick trailed off, obviously unsure of how to address me.

"It's Kyra." I put in, annoyance still coating my every word.

"Right, Kyra." The sarcasm dripping from his voice sends me into a frenzy again, and I turn on him.

"Why don't you just fuck off back to whichever stone you crawled out of? You came looking for someone and, so sorry to disappoint you, but she isn't here. She was never here." I finish, my breathing heavy and my head pounding from frustration.

"Jack, changing your name doesn't change who you are." His voice cuts through the momentary silence, causing me to sigh loudly.

"Oh, don't get all preachy on my ass, Riddick." My voice is lower, but the anger is still there. "You waltz in here after five fucking years and expect everything to be the same, for everything to be fine and dandy? Well, I've got news for you; **things** change, Riddick. **People **change. You thought you'd dangle your fucking bald head into Crematoria, grab me-uh, Jack and get out of a triple-max security slam all in a couple of hours? Oh yeah, sounds fucking easy. Shame the person you came for isn't here; fucks up your plans somewhat, I guess." Pausing briefly for breath, I carry on my torrent. "But really, Riddick, you should have put some actual thought into this. Do you really think Jack would have made it in a place like this? Do you? It's a good job she died before she ever witnessed this place; she wouldn't have lasted two minutes. Jack was a pussy. She was pathetic, weak and an embarrassment. She's better off de-." I had more things to say, plenty more things, but Riddick's grip on my neck was restricting, to say the least.

"**You're** the pathetic one, **you're** weak. You're the embarrassment, **Kyra**." His emphasis on my alias is filled with scorn and arrogance, a sneer adorning his face when he says it. My gaze is trained on his as I feel his grip tighten, but I make no move to prevent it. I want him to kill me; I want him to snap my neck. At least, that way, I mean something to him; that I, Kyra, actually mean something to the great Richard B. Riddick. But he looks at me resolutely, before releasing me and storming off. I ignore the throbbing in my neck as I sit there, watching him disappear into the darkness, with silent tears threatening to overspill.

How the hell can I compete with Jack?

Waking up groggily, I feel the slight jump in my heart, the feeling everyone gets when they forget what happened the night before because they were in an ignorant sleep, but then they wake up. And everything comes flooding back. I groan and roll over on the few rags, which serve as my bed. Not for the first time in years, I wonder what happened to me; the real me. How did it get this far? Was there a significant point where everything changed? And then I snort, loudly and obnoxiously, because I realise I sound like a twat. "Damn fucking ass, screwing everything up." I curse, referring to Riddick, though ignoring the fact that things became screwed a long time ago, without his help.

"Hell, you look rough in the morning." His deep voice made me jump visibly, and I could sense the smirk on his arrogant face. Looking upwards, where he's stood on a slightly higher rock, I pull a face.

"Well you look rough, period." I retort, hating how he made me act and sound so childish, but not being able to stop it.

"Ready to talk yet, Jack?" He asks, ignoring my comment.

"What about, Riddick? There's nothing left to say." My voice holds a permanent sigh as I suddenly become very tired. Tired of all this.

"There's shitloads to talk about." He argues pointedly, jumping down to my level. "Like how the hell you ended up in a place like this. Why you left Imam, when I told you not to, and your curious case of multiple-personality syndrome." Riddick says the latter with an annoying grin plastered on his face, and humour evident in his tone.

"Fuck you." I hiss, kicking him in the groin after he's grabbed my arms.

"Fucking hell." He moans, and I get a morbid sense of achievement from his pain.

"There's nothing to talk about." I repeat, sitting down whilst he's still holding his nether-regions.

"Bollocks to that." And I laugh at his choice of words, giggles running through my body, but he's obviously not amused. Still, he sits next to me, albeit gingerly.

"I didn't want to leave Imam, I…I liked him, I really did." I say, after what seems like an eternity of silence. "And once I'd left, it became impossible to go back. I wanted to, a day never went by when I wished I'd never left, but it just became…it just got harder and harder." I pause, fiddling with my dirty fingernails. "And then I got in with some Mercs…" Riddick's reaction to this was exactly how I expected.

"What the hell did you do that for? For fuck's sake, I did everything I could so that exact thing never happened. I left you and Imam to ensure that wouldn't happen, Jack, and you fucking waltz right up to them. How stupid are you? Did you have a fucking death wish or what? Fuck, are you dumb or something?" He ranted on, making me feel twelve again, and I didn't relish it.

"I'm sorry, alright? Sorry I'm not as good as the great Riddick! Sorry that I'm such a huge fucking screw up! For fuck's sake, Riddick, I paid for it, alright? They slaved me out." We both stopped shouting, and I suddenly became interested in the floor. "They slaved me out to some Rykengolls. I ghosted the bastards and, voila, I get banged up in this place." The silence returned, and it made me uneasy. "I told you it wasn't a particularly interesting story." I added, but it was simply to fill in the void.

"Jack…" His voice trailed off as I hold up my hand, shaking my head.

"I've told you; she's dead. She's not coming back." I say the last part with certainty, more to convince myself than anything else. Then he stands wordlessly, and walks off.

"Riddick?" I call after him, and he turns. This catches me off-guard, because I expected him to carry on, regardless, to ignore me. "Wh-Where are you going?" I ask, feeling twelve years old yet again, and it was really starting to fuck me off.

"I'm not staying in this shit-hole any longer. We're getting out of here." He answers simply, before turning back.

For the first time in years, I really smiled; all because of an easily overlooked, insignificant word. A word that made me feel like jumping for joy, but I settled for springing to my feet and chasing after him, elated that he had said _'we'_.

**A/N: **I would like to thank everyone for the wonderful reviews, which persuaded me to carry on this fic. This chapter is rather slow-starting, but I'm trying to establish Riddick and Kyra/Jack's relationship above all. Bear with me!


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